Chapter One – New Town, Old Friend
On a cold, overcast morning in the country-town of Ponyville, all was silent, all but the low wisp of gentle wind, and the howling of the breeze. It was winter—mid to late winter—and the season was still going quite strong, more or less. Hearth’s-Warming had passed, as had the New Year, and just about all the ponies were indoors, due to the three inch thick layer of snow that covered the town. It was peaceful, almost tranquil and sleepy in its appearance, for Ponyville was resting. Work had slowed, and the majority of ponies were under the thatched rooves of their homes, either in bed or up by the fire, enjoying the break that had been naturally bestowed upon them, resting beneath the blanket of snow that gave them the excuse to break. Not to say that they all were lazing in their homes, some enjoyed the outside.
But the noiselessness was broken—not by a voice, a boom or distraction—by a screech, the sound of metal on metal, the braking of a train. The carriages of the train and its engine had pulled up to Ponyville station and come to a halt, lurching as it stopped. Three doors on the train opened out of the seven-or-eight carriages, and merely a handful of ponies stepped out—two couples and a lone stallion.
The lone stallion was taller-than-average in height, his coat colour a light brown. He shot a gaze down the platform, sharply staring to see the two couples of ponies. Almost immediately, he sighed. One of his hooves reached up to fix the hat upon his head. On his flank was his cutie-mark: Two crossing saws, quite simple, but quite bold. With him, he carried a small case, presumably of his belongings—perhaps of all that he had left in the entire world. Standing on the platform, he opened his case and drew a small card with a location quickly jotted down on it. ‘The Coffee Hoof,’ it read, ‘6, Colt’s Lane, Ponyville.’ The stallion set his case down, and folded the card in half, putting it up into his hat. With one last gaze down the platform of Ponyville station, he picked up his case and began moving toward his destination.
The breeze still silently blew as the stallion moved along the snow-cleared street on his way to the location. He pushed his hat down further onto his head to ensure it wouldn’t blow away. The stallion, knowing his recent luck, just as well thought it might. The streets of Ponyville were fairly different to what he was used to—much less high-rise and simply more casual, something which would never be acceptable in the big city where he was from. The town was quiet, quiet enough for the stallion’s ears to ring, not accustomed to the lack of constant loud city noise.
He rounded a corner, heading down Colt’s Lane to the given address. Even before he reached the door of the sixth building, he was able to discern that there was a sign that read: The Coffee Hoof. For the first time in a while, a smile spread across the lone stallion’s face, and he picked up his trotting pace toward it, tracking heavier across the cobblestones.
The Coffee Hoof was a small café of sorts, albeit it had a funny name. It was near the centre of town, and since everypony in Ponyville loved their bakery goods and their pastries, a café was always a good business endeavour. The more choice a pony has, the merrier. It had glass windows with adorable trimming that looked out into the streets. With tile floors, eggshell-white interior paint, framed paintings hanging from the walls, it was the perfect vibe of a relaxed coffee-drinking and pastry-eating scene.
Excited, the lone stallion opened up the glass door, the bell that alerted the staff of an entering customer tinkling lightly as he entered. He set his case and hat on a nearby table, slowly strolling toward the counter, where behind it, a cream-coated, blue-maned mare looked up, donning a smile of her own. “Handsome Mike,” she said, shaking her head with the very same grin on her face. “I always wondered where the heck you got a name like that.”
“Like I tell everybody else, you don’t say the Handsome part. Just Mike’ll do,” responded the stallion, rolling his eyes as he trotted over. He wrapped his hooves around her, taking her in a tight hug. “Vanilla Essence! It’s been a long time,” he drew back from the hug and looked at her, trying to remember the last they spoke. “What’s it been? Three, maybe four years?”
“Beats me, Mike,” giggled the mare as she made her way back around the counter. “I don’t know why you even stayed in Manehattan. It looks like things didn’t work out anyway.” It was a bit of a low-blow in forms of a joke, but she knew what she was doing. “I’m glad you came here, though, I could definitely use a friend.”
The stallion named Mike sat down in a seat, the metal-legged chair awkwardly scraping against the tile floor. “Yeah, I think I could, too,” he mumbled under his breath, but loud enough for Vanilla Essence to hear. It seemed she was a bit too busy to notice, because she was on the other side of the counter, cleaning mugs and glasses. Handsome Mike looked back over his shoulder and noted how empty the place was. “Whoa, why the vacancy?” he asked, wanting to change the subject.
“The place is closed. Does ‘Open 6 AM – 2 PM’ mean anything to you? Not to mention there’s a sign that says we’re closed,” she was sounding more like a barkeep than a café owner. One by one, she stacked the clean cups by the side of the sink. “So, apart from the urgency to high-tail it out of Manehattan, how have you been?”
The stallion raised both his eyebrows and exhaled, his green eyes wide with cluelessness. His shrug only added to the impression he didn’t know. “I haven’t been. . . Very great to say the least. I had to pack up all my stuff, leave on such short notice, and, well, now all I have is my bank-account with maybe a year’s worth of wages saved.”
Vanilla Essence winced and shook her head. “Yeah buddy, you don’t sound like you’re in too good of a shape, either.” There was a short silence between them where neither of them said anything. Mike: Too broken up about his situation and the circumstances. And Vanilla: Too uncomfortable to want to proceed. The mare stopped cleaning the glasses, cups and mugs, looking toward the stallion at the table. “Mike, I can’t do much to help. I-I can let you stay with me in my house ‘til you get yourself back on your hooves, but there’s not much I can do beyond that.”
The stallion sighed and looked up at her from the table. “You’d really do that?” he asked, quietly and carefully. Vanilla nodded, putting the kitchenware she’d cleaned aside and moving over to a big machine would presumably manufactured coffee. She cranked some levers and pushed some buttons, the machine steaming out its pipes.
“I’ll fix you up something. It’ll help relax you—you look like you need something warm and steaming to get the chills out of you. You must’ve been freezing on your way here!” she exclaimed, working with the big espresso machine, placing a cup under one of the little taps on the mechanical device.
The machine made some funny noises—mostly whirring and other loud and sudden noises—as it pumped out a steaming cup of coffee, laden with cream. Vanilla smiled as best she could as she served the coffee cup on a white saucer, placing two sticks of sugar with it. “Order up,” she joked as she reached over and hit the bell on the counter.
Mike managed to muster a smile, and he stood up, moving to the counter and taking his cup before lazily dawdling back to his seat, setting the cup and saucer down on the table as he did. He placed his hooves on either side and lifted it to his mouth to take a sip, not bothering to add any amount of sugar. The stallion slurped a good portion down before lowering it from his mouth and leaving it on the saucer. “Mmm,” he hummed, nodding. “Just what the doctor ordered.”
The mare behind the counter smiled warmly, taking the rag she was using before to clean the kitchenware and beginning to pick up the pace once more. “Don’t mention it,” she chuckled at the implied thanks. “So how old are you now, thirty-four?” inquired Vanilla, having forgotten, unsure as to why she was asking.
“Thirty-five—just one year off. That makes you,” he trailed off in thought, holding the cup in both hooves still, ready to take another sip, “Twenty-nine.” Mike smiled with success as Vanilla gave a nod to confirm. The stallion took another sip of his hot beverage. “So you said you could take me in for a while?”
She tossed the rag down on the counter and walked out from behind it, finding herself a seat close by and sitting in it. “I did! Feel free to come home with me in a little while, I’m just about done here for today. It’s five o’clock after all,” Vanilla said as she glanced up at a clock mounted on a nearby wall.
Mike’s gaze wandered with hers up to the ticking clock on the wall. “Sure is,” he commented, turning back to his coffee and quickly finishing it off. It was good coffee, and he appreciated the fact that Vanilla wanted to take care of him, but it felt undignifying accepting help, especially when anypony else would be expected to stand on all four hooves and accept the fact. He uneasily ran his hoof over his large mane—multi-coloured with different shades of brown; light, medium and dark—breathing another sigh.
The mare in Mike’s company rolled her eyes and looked at him, whatever he was trying was fairly apparent to her. “You want to go now, don’t you?” Mike simply nodded in response. Vanilla stood and patted the stallion on the head before making her way to the back of the café to switch off the lights in the place. Handsome Mike stood as well, taking the hint that they were leaving. His hat and bag had been left on the table closest to the door, and he spared no time in moving to the front of the café so the two of them could leave, hat on head and case in hoof.
Vanilla soon joined him, ushering her friend through the door before exiting herself right afterward. Mike stood in the open air as the mare worked to lock the place, and after a short few moments, he noticed that it was snowing, not to mention that the cold of the outside was almost freezing his extremities off his body. The stallion shivered, “How far away is your house?” he asked, cursing himself for not bringing some form of protection from the cold.
“About a block from here,” Vanilla responded casually, pointing down the street. “Come on, let’s go before you decide to freeze to the sidewalk.” The cream-coated mare trotted down the sidewalk, and the long-maned stallion soon followed, keeping his hat pulled tight over his head to keep his ears out of the harm of the cold. It wasn’t difficult to tell who was more comfortable with the cold.
The two ponies trudged their way through the streets of Ponyville, one stiff with his walking, and the other was as calm and as rested as she could be—a stroll for her, but a walk through a pit of metaphorical coals for him. The stallion was just glad that he’d have a place to stay; having to take refuge in another place would be a nightmare. Vanilla Essence was a blessing, and one day he would have to make it up to her, whether he’d like to or not.
While they walked, the wind picked up more and more, Ponyville’s earlier tranquillity having been disturbed, and now overtaken by howling winds. Vanilla Essence and Handsome Mike wouldn’t have to endure the weather, and neither would any other pony with common sense. They had shelter, and at the moment, that’s all Mike cared about.
Vanilla stepped forward and opened the front door to the house, quickly getting inside and out of the cold. Handsome Mike was soon to follow, eager to escape the wind. The house was small. Charming, but small. The stallion walked further inside, letting his eyes wander over every last object in the house.
“What do you think? Better than an apartment, huh?” she chuckled, proud of her home. “Well, make yourself at home—there’s no bed, so you might have to make do with a couch, if you don’t mind.” The mare was confident sleeping on the couch wouldn’t be a deal breaker for a pony like Mike.
“No, I don’t mind,” he responded, still looking around at her home, more or less with thought and wonder than actual interest in what he was seeing. Mike turned and looked at her, smiling. “Thanks, this means a lot. I-I uhm,” Mike paused, unsure of what to say. “I appreciate it, this is the biggest favour anypony has done for me in my entire life.”
The mare simply smiled, walking over to him and taking the hat from atop his head, and the case from his holding. “I’ll take these and put them somewhere a bit more secure.” She turned and moved off to an adjacent door—her bedroom door.
Handsome Mike moved over to the couch now that his gear had been taken care of. Exhausted from the train ride, he slumped back into the couch, exhaling a huge breath, maybe sputtering a little. He’d made a long, long trip from Manehattan, leaving nearly everything he knew behind. He needed to think about it, perhaps maybe sleep on it. No more than seventy-two hours ago, he was in his city of birth, doing his job. The stallion was lucky he was able to contact somepony close and find himself a place to go—a place to lie low for a little while. On the upside of his exile from Manehattan, he got to reunite with an old acquaintance, which can only be good. He found it hard to imagine why they ever went their separate ways in the first place.
It didn’t matter, what happened before was gone—forgotten by all, with no reason to dwell upon it. Some ponies would be happy to start with a clean slate, but Mike certainly was not. From birth he was raised in Manehattan, he was a fourth generation Manehattanite, and to have it all thrown away because he got in the way of a few bad eggs, and was too stupid to take a hint seemed unfair to him. It had a scarring effect on him—that in such a short span of time, so much could go away so quickly that there was never any time to comprehend it happening—and the idea it could happen would be with him for a long time to come.
Vanilla clapped her hooves in front of Mike’s blankly staring face, “Helloooo,” she called to him. Mike shook himself to attention and looked up at her, expecting. “What do you want for dinner?” asked Vanilla, positively oblivious to what was going on inside Mike’s mind—the uncertainty and questioning. At least now Mike could rest easy, there wasn’t much that could be taken from him.
“Oh, erm, just something warm. Maybe some mashed potatoes and some roast vegetables if it’s not too much of a hassle.” Mike felt bad asking for more than he could do for himself, but the girl worked in the food business, she was capable more or less.
“Hmm, sure,” she said, turning around and making for the kitchen. “I’ll let you know when,” the mare called from the kitchen, a low echo resonating from the tile-work in the room. The meal would keep her occupied for the next thirty to sixty minutes, and a nap beforehand would be well-deserved. Mike laid himself parallel to the couch, resting his head on one of the pillows on the arms.
Before any thoughts of home could pop into Mike’s mind, he drifted off to sleep—not a second of dreams, not a second of lucidity, not even a second of thought. He was out cold, and snoring happily, although a little loudly. Vanilla was rolling her eyes in the kitchen, but there was no use calling out, he was sleeping like a log, and the chances were that he was just about as responsive as one.
Vanilla prepared the dinner for the two of them, but it would’ve gone faster if Mike wasn’t being so lazy. It caused Vanilla to grunt angrily a few times, but she made it. The roasted vegetables were cooking in the oven, while the potatoes were boiling in a big pot. Now all she could do was wait, and to her luck, on the counter was a magazine she’d only gotten halfway through. The mare flicked through the pages, browsing the articles, hoping something interesting would pop up. There was nothing but articles detailing celebrities’ lifestyles and decisions, big events everypony already knew about and comments about the recent weather.
The mare groaned audibly, closing the magazine and angrily tossing it into the corner. She was expecting her old friend to be a bit more talkative, and a bit more eager, but instead she got boring Mike, not exciting Mike, and most certainly not outgoing Mike. Vanilla Essence dawdled over to the kettle on the counter and set it to boil. Drinking chamomile and thinking about what she could do with Mike was the next thing on her list of ideas.
Minutes of contemplating activities with an old friend and sipping boiled herbs went by, and the timer for the roast and the potatoes went off. Vanilla turned a knob on the oven to shut it off, and a dial on the stove to turn off the burner. While Vanilla Essence was preparing their meal, the stallion on the couch was still out cold.
His snoring was only getting louder, and the only thing that could quell it was a poke with a really big stick. The stallion’s limbs were splayed out every which-way—some hanging off the couch, others over the back of the couch, some beneath his body—which didn’t necessarily make for the most comfortable sleeping experience.
Eventually, a steaming plate of vegetables was brought to the sleeping beauty, and once more, he was given a wakeup call. Vanilla whistled as loud as she could, and Mike scrambled awake. “Gah!” he screamed, sitting upright and looking at her, noticing she had the dinner offered out to him. “Oh, er, sorry,” he said apologetically as he accepted the dinner.
“Eat up,” said Vanilla with a smirk on her face. “You need your sleep, get to bed right after you’re done. I’m going to get in my bed and read, so. Seeya’,” she said, moving to her own bedroom with her plate of food, Mike’s eyes following her every step of the way.
After seeing she’d gone to bed, he set his dish down on the table in the centre of the lounge-room. Taking the fork given, he began to eat his meal, which he had to say tasted good and better than what he’d been eating for the past few days. The larger-than-average stallion made short work of the meal, though, and he leaned back on the couch, a hoof on his belly, satisfied with his meal. Mike shut his eyes once more, feeling a whole lot more comfortable than before now that he had a full stomach. He drifted slowly off to sleep, although this time, a little bit more peaceful, with considerably less snoring. For now, Mike was alright—a roof over his head, food in his belly—and he felt that at that very moment he didn’t need anything more to be happy.